Catherine Poulos, NP

My name is Catherine Poulos, I’m a Delta Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, board certified. I see a variety of patients, I have patients I’m treating for depression and anxiety, ADHD, schizophrenia, mood disorders, it’s pretty diverse.

My biggest challenge is trying to find the right medication for the right patient at the right dosage, most certainly. Before I used the GeneSight testing my method for practicing was similar to getting a dartboard and trying to throw the dart and see whether or not it would stick and whether or not the patient would actually have some results from the medication. To date my experience with the genetic testing being paid by insurance companies, predominantly Medicaid and Medicare are very receptive in paying for it. It actually helps also to facilitate getting products or medications that were not normally covered on the plans to now being accepted on the plans. So it gives me a tool to fight for the patient, you know, to have the appropriate medication for them that’s going to get them, you know, stabilized.

What convinced me for the efficacy of GeneSight, was I actually saw, when I looked at the clinical data that GeneSight actually conducted, they had four predominant studies. And it showed how 70% of the patients that were using genetic testing actually got to stabilization a lot quicker versus treatment as usual and that dartboard mentality. So what ended up happening is, I actually saw that with my patients, you know, their data was coming to true to life with my population. GeneSight has really helped me prescribing medications appropriately for my patients because there were so many varieties of things that I can choose from. What GeneSight has helped me to do is actually pulled it down to the ones that will be specifically appropriate for that patient. What’s wonderful about that is they’re returning back to work sooner, they’re getting out of their homes, they’re enjoying their lives. They’re actually having the quality of life that they deserve to have, readily faster than me trying to guess that.

What I would tell a physician why I think genetic testing is appropriate and GeneSight testing is appropriate to use, it’s a tool. This is another tool, similar to a blood test. And if we can use a blood test to find out whether or not they’ve got, you know, a disease disorder, why not use genetic testing that’s going to tell us what medications are best to treat their disorders? It’s similar as that.